Monday, December 23, 2013

Mr Average: "That's right. I mean, why pay for food when you can get it for free?"

MP: "But why have you started to use one now? Is it because the evil Coalition have been deliberately starving you on ideological grounds?"

MrA: "Not really. It's just that I didn't realise that there were people giving away free food until I read about them in the paper on my way to work."

MP: "And there you have it: more and more people are using food banks because the evil Coalition—cruelly limiting a household's benefits to an equivalent pre-tax income of a mere £34,000—are starving them utterly to death. On purpose. Back to you in the studio, Tom."

26 comments:

A local church does a great deal of good works, amongst which was recycling of second hand clothes from their mostly quite well-to-do congregation. One of th organisers noticed that they had a very regular clientele who were extremely choosy and only wanted designer labels. From the frequency of their visits and the fact that they were not really bothered about the fit, she worked out that these free clothes were being acquired for resale.

The church now sends these items to charity shops and the "need" for second hand clothing has declined sharply.

There's a food bank behind every supermarket - they throw away huge amounts of unspoiled food every day, just because some EU muppet decreed that all packets must have a sell-by date. The canny poor arrive just before the shops close to snap up the reduced items.Whet the UK needs is not food banks but obesity skips, into which families could chuck their overweight couch-potatoes. Apparently calling someone fat is offensive - so what DO you call those wobbly lard-mountains with more stomach folds than a sow has breasts, dressed insufficiently in over-stretched fabrics of dubious taste?

As the author would find out if he bothered to do his research, food banks are not open to the general public - you have to get referred by frontline professionals who make an assessment of need (e.g. the CAB or social workers).

To anyone who says: "Food banks only donate food to people who are referred hy social services or an official body, I have to say that is not the case with the three food banks I am aware of.

One woman my wife and I know has three jobs -two cash in hand- and earns about £30 to 40,000 a year and she gets food from a local food bank. Which she shares with friends and relations as she really doesn't need it, as she told us.

Food past its sellby date is often donated by supermarkets and sandwich bars to charities than do soup runs and pass it on to rough sleepers, ie people who REALLY need it.

People are often referred to foodbanks because their benefit payments have been delayed. This is usually the fault of inefficient civil servants etc. Sort the public sector out and the problem goes away. Donate to foodbanks and you encourage their incompetence.

I'm flabbergasted at the lack of altruism being displayed here by so many people. Weirdly, it seems to be those on the supposed left of politics who are the most against helping others. Have we gone back to the days of castigating people for not cleaning their front step? It's not as if foodbanks were funded by taxpayers, after all - they're all charitable as far as I know.

As the author would find out if he bothered to do his research, food banks are not open to the general public - you have to get referred by frontline professionals who make an assessment of need (e.g. the CAB or social workers).

A frontline professional? like a cafe near Bristol? Bethnel Green Mission Church? The YWCA in Harlow? That sort of "frontline professional"?

The whole thing stinks, and the "frontline professional" thing is part of that. Those are not frontline professionals and I've looked at 3 areas that publish their lists, and they are littered with lots of groups that are not "frontline professionals".

It's supposed to make you think these are verified genuine cases and that there's a real problem rather than some people just taking free food.

Anon"As far as I know, you can't just walk into a Food Bank and choose your groceries, you have to be referred by Social Services, Job Centre or other official body.

It's all very well scoffing and making mockery of it but when you are forced, through no fault of your own to use a Food Bank, it's a different matter."

You have fallen in to teh falacy of thinking if 300k groups choose the same name they are all the same. Some (normally long standing) food banks take referals from benifits agencies and job centres as the only basis for referal. Some just give it out to whoever.

It is like those countries who put "democratic" or "peoples" in the name are not democratic or act in the interest of their people.

the price of food is a real scandal. As noted above, the forced throwing away of food drives prices up hugely as supermarkets and reailers have so a large chunk of spoilage - this means they must charge far more for what they do sell. Do away with this and food prices could come down, doing away with any need for foodbanks.

Dk is still right thouhg, how come 300k people have fallen into complete poverty just as the economy has turned around. When things were really bad in 2009 did we have 300k people starve to death?

Who gives a shit about the filthy dirty poor. Let them eat cak. And anyway, shouldn't we be rounding these poor folk up and turning them into mulch or something. How green would that be. Me, personally, I think we should let them starve, then we could mulch them- saves on the bullet, innit.